The story of "White Christmas"

Irving Berlin had the melody for what eventually became "White Christmas" lying around for a couple of years before he began writing songs for Paramount's film, "Holiday Inn".  Berlin told an interviewer in 1954, "I took it off the shelf and polished the lyrics a little, and went to Bing Crosby's dressing room at Paramount to get his okay on all
the songs for the picture."  Crosby nodded approvingly at several songs but, according to Berlin, "...when I did 'White Christmas' he came to life and said, 'Irving, you won't have to worry about that
one"'.

Bing's instinct was correct.  By the time "Holiday Inn" was released in August 1942, a country at war had become captivated by the simple message of peace in Irving Berlin's song and Bing Crosby's voice.
Filming of "Holiday Inn" began in November 1941 and Bing first performed the song on his "Kraft Music Hall" radio program on December 25, 1941 - just eighteen days after the Japanese attack on Pearl
Harbor.  He recorded the song for Decca in May 1942, and that master eventually became worn out from overuse, causing Decca to have Bing cut a nearly identical version in 1947.

On March 4, 1943, Irving Berlin collected the Academy Award for best original song.  By the time of the Academy Awards, "White Christmas" had already enjoyed an eleven week stay at the number one spot in the
charts in the fall of 1942.  It was too big a hit not to win the Oscar.

Writing about "White Christmas" in "the Chicago Times" during the first holiday season of its existence, Carl Sandburg summed up the song's appeal.  "When we sing that, we don't hate anybody.  And there
are things we love that we're going to have sometime if the breaks are not too bad against us.  Way down under this latest hit of his, Irving Berlin catches us where we love peace."

Bing's Decca version of the song eventually became the best selling recording of all time, topping out at over 100 million sales and hitting the charts twenty separate times.  The success of "White Christmas" firmly established that Christmas songs were commercially viable.